Rugby League: Farrell Close to Union Switch

Great Britain's rugby league captain Andy Farrell is expected to confirm his move to rugby union by the beginning of next week.

Farrell's club Wigan kick-off the new Super League campaign tonight and this news will come as a major hammer blow. Last season their inspirational leader was named as the Super League Man of Steel and won the Golden Boot as the world's best player. This news will also raise questions about who will lead Britain in the Tri-Nations tournament later this year.

The Wigan chairman Maurice Lindsay is understood to have had talks with Francis Baron, the chief executive of the Rugby Football Union, about a buy-out of the last year of the 29-year-old's contract. That would mean Farrell joins a Zurich Premiership club next autumn, giving him two years to adjust to union before the 2007 World Cup.

And, despite reports yesterday suggesting that Farrell would follow his former Wigan colleague Jason Robinson to Sale, it is thought that the south of England is his likely destination. Kris Radlinski, Farrell's Wigan and Great Britain team-mate, is not expected to follow him, however.

England's rugby union management is understood to be alarmed at the lack of leadership in their pack since the retirement of Martin Johnson and Lawrence Dallaglio, and see Farrell, who has been Great Britain captain since 1996, as a possible solution.